Only (checks calendar) 4 days left till this nightmare ends and pubs re-open. I should also have received my Privilege Club edition of Sputnik V by then.
It might not work but it has the best font.
I’m nearing the end of my tether (not the separate one Mrs RM keeps me on), being told to enjoy the natural beauty of the Fens.
Having taken you to nearly all of Huntingdonshire, I’m examining the crumbs of comfort around Ely.
19 minutes to Stuntney,
via the newish A142 Ely bypass which allows trucks to avoid the low bridge in the cathedral city. Sadly, the bypass will see Stuntney deprived of its lone entry in the record books as the accidents come to an end.
It’s noticeable how many of those hot spots are in East Angular, isn’t it ?
Two miles from Ely, you’ll get a decent view back to the cathedral on a clear day.
Obviously I don’t arrive on a clear day. Where’s the fun in that.
Actually, the fog makes it’s all a little eerie, aided by the knowledge you’re surrounded by endless Fens and would never find your way to Soham if you got lost.
I check WhatPub, JUST in case there’s a pub I’ve missed. Nothing for miles.
And no sign of dead pubs either, which is always a shame as you know how I love complaining about folk who leave signs up when they convert pubs to houses.
It took 20 minutes to examine, in detail, every building in Stuntney (pop. 200). The pheasant on the thatch is the highlight.
But what’s this !
A Fenland Social Club. Surely they’ll have Greene King IPA and a hazy DIPA on during line dances ?
Sadly, the Facebook page is dormant and dull, and mainly concerned with bingo.
Perhaps this shed will be a thriving micropub when I return in 2030.
Dull dull dull. But when I got home, I scoured the Stuntney Facebook page, and found this... (20) Facebook
Press the link. I do hope it works.
retiredmartin 
Is it just my imagination, but there seems to be an awful lot of level-crossings in East Anglia, as well as low bridges. (Waits patiently for some railway-buff to correct me!)
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Well, er, I suppose that if you’re going to make a “level” crossing, then in principle the ground has to be level.
You’re on to a winner in East Anglia…
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T’other Paul,
I’m not a railway-buff but have noticed many more level crossings than bridges in East Anglia.
It’s probably that bridges are unusual and so unexpected that accounts for “It’s noticeable how many of those hot spots are in East Angular”,
The top three strikes are not far from me though.
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Sad to see that Station Road in Harpenden isn’t in the top 10, not that there’s much commuting these days into that there London Town.
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Hello how can i get to you..i wanna meet you.!?
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They have installed an elaborate early warning system for the low bridge on George’s Road in Stockport including electronic height detectors. Maybe some of these other bridges need something similar.
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Would make a refreshing variation on the “duck or grouse” signs in some pubs too, maybe.
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Aaaah with a blog title like that….you should have had a picture of a caravan…..*
* I’ll get my coat…
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It was Caravan I was thinking of (I have that album), even though it’s Metallica who pub up first on Wiki.
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I seem to remember the late John Peel accidentally spoonerising that title.
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Caravan sprang to mind with me too, especially as I’m not a Metallica fan.
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Sadly I didn’t have time or the will to watch the halloween video -about a minute was enough -but someone obviously went to a lot of trouble to make it – shame it was only seen by just over 100 folk !
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One minute was more than I managed, Pauline, but I still laughed ;-0
100 is half the village !
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“CUNNING STUNTNEY”
Well done!
(and that was a bit risqué) 😉
“I’m nearing the end of my tether (not the separate one Mrs RM keeps me on),”
Course not. Blimey, with that one you’ve been free to ramble all over the bloody place!
“Sadly, the bypass will see Stuntney deprived of its lone entry in the record books as the accidents come to an end.”
Perhaps your blog title will win them another entry into the dyslexic record books. 😉
“Two miles from Ely, you’ll get a decent view back to the cathedral on a clear day.”‘
That’s the view from two miles away? The cathedral must be HUGE!
“Obviously I don’t arrive on a clear day.”
Ah. My mistake.
“and would never find your way to Soham if you got lost.”
Easy. Just wait till the cows go home. 🙂
“The pheasant on the thatch is the highlight.”
Was it real? Or just some weird weather vane?
“But what’s this !”
The same bloody photo you used earlier in the post.
“A Fenland Social Club. ”
Ah. You mean’t ‘but what’s this’ looking at the photo below, not the one above. My mistake.
“Perhaps this shed will be a thriving micropub when I return in 2030.”
Isn’t that where part of LOTR was filmed?
(i.e. where the Hobbits lived)
“Press the link. I do hope it works.”
I could see it. And now I have yet another reason as to why I don’t do FB. 🙂
Cheers
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The only thing likely to be filmed in Stuntney is some documentary about a post-dystopian world without pubs. Or is that Lord of the Rings too ? (never read or watched it).
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The Lord of the Rings features the Prancing Pony in Bree. I suspect it brewed its own beer but we are not told. It seems to be a coaching inn with stables and could be inspired by somewhere in or around he Black Country since Tolkein lived in Birmingham at one time. There is also a mention of The Forsaken Inn east of Bree but nothing more.
At he end of my street there is a low bridge passing under the Tottenham & Hampstead railway and where electronic warning signs (which flashed red when an oversized vehicle approached) were put up for a time a few years ago. I think three were put up in all and each time the sign either broke or was stolen so eventually the last one was not replaced.
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I just wasted FIVE minutes searching Bing maps for Brew, Ian. No idea it was fictional.
Never seen any Star Wars films either.
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Ian,
I’m not aware of Tolkein having any connections with the Black Country but he did go to school in Birmingham and later spent much time in Staffordshire.
During the Great War Second Lieutenant J.R.R. Tolkien of the Lancashire Fusiliers was stationed in the county, first at Whittington Heath, near Lichfield, next at a musketry camp at Newcastle-under-Lyme, then at Rugeley and Brocton Camps on Cannock Chase. After his marriage in March 1916, Tolkien’s wife came to live in Great Haywood so that she could be close to him. After a brief posting to East Yorkshire, Tolkien returned to Staffordshire in 1918 and lived in a cottage at Gipsy Green, Teddesley Park, near Penkridge.
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It is correctly spelt Bree so you wouldn’t have found it anyway. Apparently it is about a day’s journey from the Shire along the Great East Road and Tolkein based it on Brill in Buckinghamshire.
When I first went to grammar school there were no set English Literature texts for the first couple of years and the teacher decided that we should read something more interesting (for eleven year olds) than the likes of Dickens, so we did The Hobbit and the first book of he Lord of the Rings. That teacher then moved on and the next one was not enthused by Tolkein, so I borrowed he later Ring volumes from the library and completed the cycle myself. I still remember most of the story but rather less of the Dickens that the rather soporific second teacher read out.
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But there is a real place called Wetwang.
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Good chippy there.
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Regarding the Black Country, I think the connexion is that it is said to have been in his mind when creating Mordor, the black land where the Ring had to be taken to be destroyed.
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Ian,
Surely not.
Mordor is the realm and base of the evil Sarson.
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Isn’t it where you end up if you fall asleep on the Northern Line?
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A fate worse than Edgware ?
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Nothing is worse than Edgware. Though I’d be happy enough to meet you there for a pint tomorrow Paul.
Actually, I just typed “Edgware” into WhatPub. Of the 16 entries, 15 are keg, the other (ex-Spoons) sells Doom Bar. Cask in dead in North West London.
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Yes indeed, Doom Bar and a chat with you in Edgware would be the highlight of the month.
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